


Polaris

by bluenebulae



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender, Stardust (2007)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - No Avatar (Avatar TV), Alternate Universe - Stardust Fusion, F/M, Friends to Enemies to Allies to Friends to Lovers, Mythology - Freeform, i think
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-23
Updated: 2020-07-30
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:48:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24329800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluenebulae/pseuds/bluenebulae
Summary: When Zuko is banished to the strange world beyond the Fire Nation, he never expects to find the fallen star he's been sent to retrieve at all, much less discover it would be a girl. Katara, for her part, just wants to find her way home - but when her home is in the sky, that's easier said than done.A Stardust AU.
Relationships: Katara/Zuko (Avatar), Sokka/Yue (Avatar)
Comments: 26
Kudos: 76





	1. Beyond

It is a warm summer night when Zuko is confronted with his destiny.

So warm, in fact, that it makes the councilors milling about the throne room lethargic, drifting like fruit flies around the war table. The fire crackling around the perimeter of the room does little to help. Beneath his layers of silk and ornate armor, Zuko is sweating, but he pushes the discomfort away and focuses on his father’s face beside him at the war table. He’ll be the model prince, even if nobody’s watching him to see it.

“An alien ship was spotted off the coast of Jang Hui, your highness,” one councilor says, pointing to a miniscule island at the edge of the map. “Our soldiers dispatched of it before it could land.”

“And the town citizens?”

“They saw nothing, your highness.”

“Good.” The Fire Lord’s eyes narrow as he leans over the map of their nation. “What of the famine in Po Huai?”

“Your highness, the situation is dire,” another councilor says in a dusty, ancient voice. The red robes that swath him hang heavily off his frail frame. “Extreme rationing is in place, but the research—”

“Enough.” Zuko’s father raises an imperious hand, and the man shrinks back.

“We cannot redirect any more resources to Po Huai; we are all accustomed to seasons of austerity, but we cannot compromise our nation’s defenses. As for—”

“What about beyond?”

For the first time during the entire meeting, the Fire Lord acknowledges Zuko. The full brunt of his golden gaze sears Zuko’s face, catching on the left side of it.

“What was that?”

“Beyond,” Zuko says. He is suddenly aware that the room has gotten even more quiet. He swallows dryly, wishing he hadn’t opened his mouth, but he forges ahead. “If we don’t have the resources in the Fire Nation, what about outside of it?”

“What do you mean by _beyond_?” a sharp-faced councilor asks.

“Beyond the gates. Across the ocean.”

“You know there isn’t any such thing as _beyond_ , Prince Zuko. Don’t be silly,” his father says. His brilliant golden gaze has grown hotter. Sweat pools at the small of Zuko’s back.

“But you just said earlier that there was a ship, and it wasn’t from our nation. There must be _something_ out there. It can’t have come from nowhere.”

The entire room is silent. The Fire Lord’s stare has reached a blazing pitch, and it’s enough to make Zuko’s hands tremble. He knows what he’s been told about the world beyond their borders, first by his mother and then by his tutors year after year: it’s a savage place, full of monsters that need no extra provocation to attack their nation. But surely if it’s a famine and their citizens are _dying_ , they have to consider every option—

“This meeting is dismissed.” His father’s voice slices through the stuffy air. “Prince Zuko, a word outside. _Now._ ”

He grips Zuko’s arm none too gently and drags him past the braziers and through the great double doors until the cool night breeze hits Zuko’s face. It’s a blessed relief, but only for a moment.

The Fire Lord drops Zuko’s arm and grabs his chin instead, wrenching it up so that Zuko can’t avert his eyes. “Prince Zuko,” he says, the silk of his voice barely concealing the blaze beneath. “Would you care to explain to me what you meant by that little display of yours?”

“I—I was offering a suggestion. I was trying to be helpful,” Zuko stammers.

“ _Helpful_?”

The fire drops away, leaving only icy derision as his father’s voice hardens. His fingers on Zuko’s chin are tight enough to hurt, the fingertips burning across his jaw and constricting his throat. Zuko tries to nod and steel his gaze, but he’s never been good at hiding his fear from his father.

“What, exactly, is useful about making a fool out of yourself during your first tribunal as Crown Prince? Really, Zuko. _Beyond_?” Ozai spits out a harsh imitation of a laugh. “Has your mother taught you nothing?”

He can’t breathe for an entirely different reason now. Each word is a battle to force out of his chest, suddenly cavernous with sadness. “But the councilor said there was a ship—”

“Don’t speak over your elders,” the Fire Lord snaps. “It seems my past reminders have been too lenient.”

He jerks Zuko’s face to the side, his eyes sliding to the left as one finger presses into the bottom of the scar tissue, and Zuko can’t hold back the hiss of pain. He tries to concentrate on the garden instead, watching the moonlight play on the surface of the pond, searching for answer in the leaves of his mother’s decorative bonsai, one of the last pieces of her that the palace holds.

How had it gone so wrong so quickly? All he’d wanted was to contribute to the conversation, to make his father proud, to get the generals and councilors to stop whispering about him behind their hands when he passes them in the hallway. All he wants is to prove that he _is_ a prince, worthy of the throne, and that he can make decisions for the good of his people.

“Father,” he says quietly, pinning his eyes to his boots. “I apologize for speaking over you. But I don’t understand. What’s wrong with suggesting that we look for solutions beyond our own nation? It’s never been tried—what if there’s something we’re missing out there? Something that could help? It isn’t just Po Huai, it’s all the villages on the outer islands. I’ve heard the reports. People are—are dying.”

His father’s hand relaxes, releasing his chin. “When was the last time we sent someone beyond the gates?” he asks, his voice dangerously smooth, and Zuko can tell he’s made a mistake.

“Eight years ago,” he mumbles.

“And when was the last time we saw them?”

“Eight years ago.”

“Exactly,” the Fire Lord murmurs. “So unless you want to end up like your _idiot_ uncle, why would you suggest going beyond the gates in front of the most powerful men in our nation? Are you trying to make me look like a fool, Zuko?”

His voices rises steadily in pitch until it’s ringing through the courtyard, and Zuko winces, instinctively shrinking back. He hangs his head, determined to stay silent, but it’s too late.

“Answer me! Have you not been taught about the barbaric dangers of whatever primitive races prowl beyond our borders? Have I not _personally_ explained to you what a threat they are to our nation?”

Of course he had. Zuko had heard it time and time again growing up—the reason the Fire Nation is shut off from the outside world is for their citizens’ safety against a place where unnatural and malicious forces rule. But he’d thought, maybe, if there were people out there somewhere—

“Didn’t I, Zuko?” his father roars.

“Yes!” Zuko finally snaps, his breathing heavy. “Yes, father, you told me, but why couldn’t we just _look_? How will we know if we don’t properly investigate? Our army is strong, our nation is powerful, and this could be what we need to solve our problems…”

There’s a flash, suddenly, bright enough to illuminate his father’s face, twisted into a snarl before he glances up. Zuko follows the motion, shocked.

The night sky has been split by a blur of white that streaks through the heavens, glinting as it hurtles to the north. It bathes the whole courtyard in silver, turning it as colorless as the moon—the pond, the trees, his own skin.

A falling star.

As it passes out of sight over the northern wall of the palace, Zuko dares to sneak another glance at the Fire Lord. His rage has faded slightly, entranced by the magnificence of the sight, and Zuko momentarily relaxes. But then he sees what replaces it: a curve of the lips, a hardening of the brow. Something even more sinister. Ozai’s eyes flash as if struck with lightning, and Zuko could swear for just a moment that he can see them burn.

“Well, Prince Zuko,” his father says in a voice so quiet and smooth that it’s almost kind. “If you’re so fascinated by what lies beyond our great gates, why don’t you find out yourself?”

Dark stars pop in Zuko’s vision, his ears filling with a rushing sound like waves. “What?” he asks dazedly.

With one hand, the Fie Lord gestures toward the distant horizon, where the brightness of the fallen star still clings hollowly to the pronounced darkness it had left behind. “I have tried to teach you time and time again about honoring your elders and traditions, but it seems my lessons have been ineffective.” Again, he turns his gaze to the ruined side of Zuko’s face, this time deliberately, and Zuko feels phantom heat there as badly as the day it had happened. “It’s clear that life in the palace has made you soft. A soft, dishonorable prince cannot lead this great nation, much less protect it from the horrors of beyond. Do you have honor, Zuko?”

“Yes, of course,” Zuko blurts out.

“Then prove it. Go and bring me that fallen star.”

It’s a joke. It must be a joke—except that Zuko has never heard his father joke before. His voice is steady and cold, betraying no hint of amusement.

But…a fallen star?

“That’s impossible,” Zuko says in disbelief.

“Is that your answer, then?” His father sighs, his mouth curling downward. “The crown prince of the Fire Nation—my own flesh and blood—too cowardly to complete a single task?”

“No! That’s not what I meant!” cries Zuko, throwing his hands up. He hasn’t seen open flame yet, but he can see it in his father’s stare, the same sharp focus he’d had the day his hand seared its way down Zuko’s face. “I can do it. I’m strong. I’m honorable enough.”

“Good.”

The cruel curve of the Fire Lord’s mouth straightens, and he draws himself up to his full height, staring down at Zuko as if he’s just another trembling soldier. “You’ll leave at dawn. Nobody will accompany you. And don’t bother to return without completing your mission; you’ll find there is no place for failures here.”

∞

He isn’t expecting any visitors later that night, after he’s stifled his sobs and when he is laying his possessions out on his bed by candlelight. He should have known better.

“Hello, brother.”

Zuko startles, turning, to see Azula leaning in the doorway. In the flickering light, her features are amorphous, dulling the knifelike beauty that’s usually there, so different from his own face. Despite the late hour, she is wearing her formal robes, her hair pulled back. He sets down the shirt he had been holding.

“Have you come to say goodbye?”

She pushes away from the door, letting candlelight spill over more of her face, and Zuko is surprised to find what he thinks might be sadness mixed into the usual mask of confidence. It gives Azula an odd expression that lands somewhere between anger and a vague disgust, as if she had eaten something unpleasant.

“I have, in fact,” she says, and glances down at her nails, feigning disinterest. “I hear you’ve gotten yourself into some wild goose chase to keep your crown. Good going.”

“I…” Zuko can’t deny it. It _is_ a wild goose chase. A _star_?

“Who knows? Maybe you’ll do the impossible. Nobody would ever expect it of you—you always were the disappointing sibling—but that’s part of the fun.”

“What do you want, Azula?” He turns back to the bed and stuffs a cloak into his knapsack with more violence than is necessary. “I’m busy.”

“You already guessed. I wanted to say goodbye to my dear older brother. It’ll be lonely being an only child, I suppose, but I think I can manage.” She giggles, a bright, glittering, cruel sound.

“And here I thought you actually cared about me for a moment.”

“I’m not the one who ran my mouth about _the world beyond_ _the gates_ in front of a tribunal.” Azula rolls her eyes, her voice particularly derisive.

“I wasn’t thinking.”

“Clearly you weren’t. Really, Zuzu—”

“Don’t call me that—”

“—I thought you knew better than this.” She smiles at him, but it’s slippery, and it doesn’t reach her eyes. “It almost seems like you were _trying_ to get exiled. Do you really miss Uncle that much? He’s dead anyway, you know. Just like Mother.”

“ _Enough_!”

The candle flares brightly, its flame ballooning upward to set the canopy alight, and Zuko groans before extinguishing it. “Just—please get out, Azula.”

Azula quirks a perfectly-shaped brow as she turns back to the door. “Whatever you say, brother. I was just trying to warn you not to get your hopes up. You know what’s out there just as well as I do.”

The door slams behind her, rattling in its frame, and Zuko slumps over the bed. He _does_ know.

Nothing.

Nothing for him, at least. A fallen star? Even within the confines of his nation, it sounds impossible. He doesn’t even know what it looks like, much less where to start searching for it.

He surveys his belongings, but there’s nothing that will help. All of his clothes are made for warm weather; the coins will be useless to whatever animals live beyond their borders, and he’s never cooked a day in his life. The map he has spread over his desk only details their own nation. Everything else is crudely depicted as a mass of mountains and plains, labeled only with the word ‘beyond.’

Zuko’s hand slips into his pocket. His fingers slide over cool metal, prying at the seams as he flips it over in his palm over and over. It’s a nervous habit he’d picked up, a reminder of his childhood days when the hallways and courtyards were filled with laughter. Today, though, he draws it out in the shifting silence and lets the candlelight play over the engraved bronze before flicking it open with his thumb.

Four rubies are inlaid across the surface of the compass in each of the cardinal directions. The needle shivers somewhere between east and south. Azula, when she’d first seen it, had taken great delight in mocking it: “it’s a piece of _junk_ , Zuko. Uncle left you one thing to remember him by and it doesn’t even _work_ right.”

But Zuko has a memory that he holds close to his chest: of Iroh, face full of sorrow, stooping down to look Zuko in the one eye that isn’t obscured by bandages. “ _Hold out your hand_ ,” he says in Zuko’s mind, and Zuko feels something heavy and cool drop into it.

Iroh folds his fingers over the compass. “ _No matter where in the world you may be, this will always lead you home_.”

Zuko had opened it time and time again in the months after Iroh had left, wishing for the odd engraving of the lotus flower on the front to transform into some kind of message, but the needle had only ever spun about like an unhinged clock. He remembers his bitter disappointment: _What use is this if I never leave home_?

Now, though, as Zuko carefully slips it back into his pocket, he thinks maybe it will finally serve its purpose. It won’t lead him to the star, but at least it can lead his way back once he completes his mission.

If he can ever complete it.

∞

Everyone gathers at dawn at the palace entrance. The Fire Lord is surrounded by a knot of solemn-faced advisors; Azula wears her full army regalia, resplendent even under the weak light, and Zuko’s stomach lurches when he sees the crown holding back her hair. Three prongs of flame, each inlaid with tiny, glittering stones. The crown of the throne’s heir.

They walk down to the dock in a silent processional, Zuko feeling uncomfortably exposed in his simple tunic next to all of the red-robed councilors and generals. He shifts his pack and grits his teeth. It’s clear his father has gathered them all here like this to shame him further. There’s no other reason he needs twenty people guarding him as they pace through the empty streets. Two or three could have sufficed, especially with his sister there, but he realizes as he glances about that it’s every familiar face from the tribunal the night before.

He is being made into an example.

The bay opens up at the far end of the street, and Zuko gulps. Every step is an effort, and he wishes for time to slow around them, for the cobblestones to roll on endlessly and never meet the wood of the docks. Too soon, they do, and he looks up to stare at his new fate.

The ship is small, wooden, trimmed in gold and rigged with crimson sails. Elegant in its own way—but to him, right now, it looks like his own personal coffin.

He has no possessions beside his knapsack filled with clothes, a few firebending scrolls, and his uncle’s compass. This will not be a years-long journey, he told himself the night before as he gathered his things. He’ll find the star quickly or he won’t find it at all.

The councilors form a line on either side of him as he walks up to the gangplank. Zuko raises his chin defiantly and refuses to look any of them in the eye. He won’t give them the satisfaction.

He hesitates before his feet leave Fire Nation soil. His father stands on one side of him, Azula on the other; she wears a self-satisfied smirk that suits her even better than the crown.

“May the spirits bring you luck, Zuko,” the Fire Lord proclaims loud enough for the gathering to hear. The absence of the word _prince_ is made even more conspicuous by his long pause before he says Zuko’s name. Then he draws Zuko towards him. Zuko goes stiff, confused, until his father’s voice slips into his ear.

“Return with the star or not at all.”

He doesn’t look back as he climbs the gangplank. The eyes on his back burn hotter than the sun on his face, but Zuko locks his gaze on the red sails and tries to block everything else out. The buzzing in his head reaches a deafening pitch as he steps onto the deck—polished, pristine, empty.

It’s only when he hears the hiss of flame that he turns back to the deck. Azula has seared through the ropes tethering the little ship to the dock’s stone. The wind catches in the sails a moment later, making them billow and snap, and he begins to float away from the only home he has ever known.

Lines of faces stare up at him like moons, but Zuko sets his jaw and looks past them at the imperious golden spires of the palace. They stab upwards at the sky, and it’s funny, Zuko thinks; he never truly knew what the place he lived in all his life looks like until he’s left it.

He stands there, stock-still at the stern, chin held high until all of it is gone behind him in a smudge of smoke.

The bay is large, and it takes a good while until he reaches the gates. They stretch like cobwebs across the mouth of the island. As he approaches them, the lurch returns to his stomach. Zuko had managed to hold it off as he left the capital—he’d been to the rest of the nation before, of course—but this is uncharted territory. Not just for him, but for everyone alive that he knows.

He’s really doing this.

The gates loom closer, the serpentine patterns becoming wrought iron alight with flame. As he watches, they sliver down the middle with a resounding creak, the ache of disuse.

Wind ruffles Zuko’s hair, tangling it into his eyes. Without a crown, he’d had no way to pin it back this morning.

He breathes deeply as the ship approaches the gates. He can’t see who’s controlling them, but they stop moving once they’ve parted just widely enough for his ship to slip through. Zuko peers out at the other side, searching for any hint of whatever sets his country apart from the wilderness beyond it, but the water is the same diaphanous blue.

And then the gates are on either side of him, arching high enough that he can’t see the tops. The heat from the flames caresses his arms. One last touch of home.

With one final, resounding groan, the gates snap shut behind him. The ocean spreads itself out before him, open and endless in every direction he can see; the sun is above him in a cloudless sky the color of the underside of a bird’s wing.

Despite everything, Zuko is filled with a sudden lightness. He knows the dangers, but he can feel the potential, too, taste it in the salt on his tongue. He would do this. He would return home. He would be the first. And they would all know who he was then – not the scarred, cowardly, son, but the prince, the leader.

He just has to find the star first.

∞

In a land far from the crystal blue ocean, blanketed in snow and magic, a girl awakes.

She blinks twice against the brightness of the sun. She had never seen it before – not like this. She takes in her surroundings, the grass cool against her palms, the air fresh in her lungs.

“Damn it,” she grumbles, and takes her first steps on land.


	2. Brave New World

For the first hour of his new life in the beyond, Zuko simply drifts.

There isn’t much else to do. He’s exhausted from a sleepless night, emptied of emotion after the waves of shock that had battered him. Besides, he doesn’t know where to go even if he did want to move. He doesn’t even know what this world looks like, much less how to find something a small and indefinable as a _star_ in it. All he remembers through the haze of fear is the brightness streaking over the northern wall. But which way is north? Are the cardinal directions even the same here? Zuko’s teachers had warned him of ‘wild magic,’ volatile forces threaded throughout the earth and water and even the air. What else about this place is dangerous?

At least the sun is still the same, warm and reassuring on his face. Zuko holds out one palm; when fire snaps to life in it as easily as ever, he breathes a sigh of relief. He has Dao swords strapped across his back, but firebending is more versatile. It’s a part of him.

Even with that small relief, melancholy sets in soon over Zuko as he stares out at the crystalline waves. How in the _world_ is he supposed to know where to go? How can he ever find out if he can’t trust anyone?

He slides his hand into the front of the satchel, fingers closing around familiar cool bronze. It’s enough to send a momentary pulse of relief through Zuko, but it doesn’t last long. When he opens it, the needle is as fickle as ever. In fact, it seems to be spinning even faster than usual, turning to a spot to the west and then jittering away from it immediately.

Zuko groans and snaps it shut. “Thanks, Uncle.”

For lack of anything better to do, he decides to explore the ship. If it really is to be his home for the next couple months—or however long this useless mission takes—then he might as well get comfortable. Zuko quickly discovers, though, that there isn’t much to get comfortable _in_. The deck is barely the length of his room in the palace and a good deal slimmer. The only protection the ship offers from the elements is a small cabin, outfitted with a neatly-made bunk, a tiny hearth, and not much else. It’s a good thing he didn’t bring much with him. Zuko wonders who else such a small craft could have been meant for—there isn’t much sea within the nation, save the bay, and all of the patrols he’s seen have been in vast, iron-sided boats that stink of smoke and rust. In comparison, his little ship is frail.

Zuko doesn’t bother to unpack his knapsack, but he does lay down on the bunk and stare at the wood above him. The waves rock the ship in a rhythm that could be soothing under different circumstances. All they are to him now is a reminder of how alone he is.

Alone.

He’d felt alone before, in the great dark echo of the palace halls, but it’s nothing compared to this. He doesn’t even care about how dangerous it is for him to be floating out here, a prime target for any ravenous passerby. He might even welcome the sight of something hostile—as long as it’s alive.

Zuko groans and punches one hand into the wall.

It splinters a bit under the force, and he swears, sucking at the knuckle where the skin had split. Blood blossoms bright across it anyway, and Zuko’s too tired to do anything but watch.

He must fall asleep somewhere in the long stretch of his sorrow, because when he finally gathers the energy to rise and leave the cabin, the sky is an unusual shade of violet above him. It’s richer than anything he’d seen at home, and he pauses, taking in the vastness of it as the stars begin to prick their way through.

Stars. Right. Mission.

Zuko breathes deeply, feeling his lungs fill with sea salt. As he watches, more and more of them come through, cascading across his vision. At the same time, a memory rises out of the depths of years, unbidden.

He is six and sitting in the palace courtyard. Uncle Iroh is beside him, legs crossed and hands folded over his belly, a serene smile on his face.

“The stars are the same the whole world over,” he tells Zuko. “No matter where you are, you can count on them to guide you.”

“Even when we’re not at the palace?” Zuko lisps.

Iroh chuckles, a sound that fills Zuko’s mind like warm, hearty stew. “Yes, Prince Zuko. Even beyond.”

Back then, Zuko hadn’t been able to fathom the idea of beyond. But now the stars above him _do_ look familiar, albeit much brighter. Maybe they can lead him right to the one he seeks. He racks his mind for more of Iroh’s advice.

“ _The brightest one will guide you north.”_

But all of them look bright to his untrained eyes. Zuko blinks, swiping a hand across his bad eye, but he can’t make out anything that could be the north star Iroh had mentioned.

“Come _on_ ,” he yells, as if the points of light could actually hear him. “Just work with me!”

He’s met with the slap of the waves against the hull, louder than before. The stars swirl and flash and torment him.

“Ugh.” Zuko slumps down and buries his face in his hands.

He can’t do this.

Not alone. Not directionless. Maybe if he had a crew, a companion, even just a map—but he’s got nothing but two fistfuls of fire and a head full of anger adrift on a foreign sea. The false bravura he’d worn as a shield as he left the gates that morning had crumbled swiftly away, and now Zuko feels raw, vulnerable to anything that comes his way.

He’d been raised a prince. His schooling and training had all been in service of etiquette, politics, and shows of strength; he can outstrip any soldier in an Agni Kai, but somehow, he thinks the formal rules of a one-on-one duel won’t mean much here. What he is lacking are survival skills. Childhood was padded with silk and permeated with warmth, occasionally punctuated by the sting of anger or abandonment. Life as a young adult had been harder—the skin on the left side of Zuko’s face is tight against his bones, echoing with pain—but he’d adapted to the intrigues of court life, learning when to be imperious and when to be deferential.

What he hadn’t learned is how to navigate on his own, how to blend into a crowd and sleep in trees and fight dirty. He certainly never learned anything about tracking stars beyond the edge of the known world.

It dawns on him slowly that he really _isn’t_ going to be able to do it alone.

Zuko had heard vague stories about what lived beyond the gates. Monsters, filled with crude magic and rage the likes of which most of his nation had never seen. It’s lawless, malicious, and that’s why they’d sealed down their borders. He’d even heard whispers around the palace that the creatures out here had learned to bend things that weren’t even fire – some sort of strange magic.

A shudder runs down his spine at the thought. Dark shadows bend themselves out of the water before his eyes, claws dragging up the side of the ship; Zuko punches a burst of fire at them before he remembers it was only his imagination.

Even if they _can_ bend shadows, or blood or bodies or whatever other terrifying things might exist out here, he has no other plan. The sea offers him no answers. At least if he finds land, he can follow the coast.

There’s no indicator of anything but water around him, so Zuko chooses his direction at random. The moon is just beginning to rise off the right side of his ship. The pearly crescent carries a blue sheen, misty despite the lack of clouds in the sky, and when Zuko looks at it for too long it fills him with an unnamable sorrow.

He shakes his head and pulls the wheel until the prow is staring straight at the moon, and then he begins to coax the sails to fill with wind.

-

The night stretches long over the little ship the stars shining even more fiercely as if to make up for the one they’d lost. Zuko stays above deck, taking odd comfort in their reassuring pulse against the untamable waves. The breeze is scant; he has to keep close attention to the wheel to keep himself from drifting around or back to where he’d started, although there’s still no sign of land to measure his progress by. The moon passes over him solemnly like an attendant in a funeral march. Zuko toys with his fire, weaving rings and snakes out of it idly. He should have brought a book. He’d been in too much of a hurry to think of these things when he’d left, but maybe he should have considered how utterly boring a life-changing mission could be.

If only the wind was faster, if only there was something to look at besides the endless waves…if only.

Zuko has no way to keep track of time, and so it’s both a relief and a shock when he realizes the sky is beginning to brighten. It isn’t by much; it’s a hint of violet pulling at the horizon before him, but it’s the promise of sunlight, and Zuko fixates on it. He’d survived one day beyond, if nothing else.

He’s only tangentially aware of the wind picking up and beginning to pull insistently at his hair. The purple horizon is alluring, and Zuko focuses on it as hard as he can, muscling the ship’s wheel through larger and more insistent waves. The rhythmic beat on the hull becomes irregular, but the prince just chases the horizon, the promise of light.

It’s why he doesn’t notice the storm until he’s in it.

It builds gradually and then all at once, the gusts of wind turning into gales. As the first few raindrops hit the deck, Zuko looks down, confused. Sea spray?

Then he sees how the sky over him has refused to lighten, and the horizon—so cloudless and lovely only a few hours ago—now roils with black and gray. The crystal waves here have turned to iron against the sides of his ship.

Zuko curses.

He’d learned to sail at a young age—on a tranquil, glassy lake in a tranquil, tiny town outside of the Capital, with a host of guards watching his every move. Triumphantly, he had steered the warship around the lake a few times while townspeople clapped politely. He realizes now that it has nothing in common with actually commandeering a _ship_ , not just a proud, fancy prop.

The steering wheel swings wildly back and forth, and Zuko has to fight to turn it in any direction, pushing every ounce of his muscle against the slick wood. The sea fights back a hundred times stronger. It _seethes_. It’s been angered somehow; he doesn’t know much about the ocean, either, but he’s never seen water look so furious.

Is this one of the creatures he’d learned about? Is this world so strange that even the _water_ is alive?

Zuko doesn’t have time to consider the unsettling idea. Soon the water is streaming from the sky, too, in vast sheets that plaster his hair to his head and chill him to the bone. The whole deck is soaked. He clings to the steering column, not even sure where to turn it, because the storm is all around him in every direction.

Abruptly, Zuko feels just as angry as the sea. What senseless whim has made it so tormented? It’s not a fair fight, not even close, him and his little ship against an ocean of pain.

The thunder swallows his frustrated scream

The sails above him flap wildly, and then a rope snaps. One flings itself out over the stormy sea, crimson on endless gray, blood on stone. Zuko lunges for it, but it dances out of his reach. The waves grab at the hull and rattle it. In the distance, lightning flashes impossibly bright, brighter and falser than the sun.

He sees it looming up before him then. Taller than the walls of the palace.

The wave crashes over his ship. Zuko loses his grip on the steering wheel. Helpless, he skitters across the slick deck, ropes and nets flying by his grasping fingers, until he slams into something that knocks all of the breath from him. The mast, he sees, when he forces his eyes open against the pounding rain.

He wraps his arms around it and clings.

There’s nothing else to do. Zuko can’t fight a storm. He locks his arms around the mast, shutting his eyes against the torment of the sea, and counts off peaceful memories in his head. Daylight floods in against his eyelids, turtleducks drifting across the surface of a pond, the sharp sweetness of underripe moon peaches, his uncle’s belly laugh, the delicate dance of his first flame. If he’s come out here to die in this wild, foreign land, this is how he wants to spend his last moments—not as an exile or a failure.

He retreats there as the storm rages around him, even as his stiff muscles lock around the mast, even as lightning sizzles in his ears. He’s still hidden in his childhood when the crash reverberates through his body.

Wood crunches on rock, and Zuko wrenches his eyes open against the sea salt sticking his lashes together.

It looks like he’s found land.

The bow of the ship is smashed into a jagged spur of rock. The polished deck has crumpled like paper, splinters sticking up at odd angles. One ragged sail clings to the swaying mast. The steering wheel is obliterated.

Zuko can only groan. He is too tired to scream. His arms, locked in place too tightly for too long, won’t move without ripples of pain shooting through the muscles, but Zuko’s knees bend and he sinks to what’s left of the ruined deck. The storm rages behind him, a deadly swirl over the open ocean, but thin sunlight streams across the rock before him. The wreck bobs in the water.

The stupid thing hadn’t even had the courtesy to kill him.

No, he’s just well and truly stuck. Completely stranded on a length of rock that’s too rough for him to climb, and besides, Zuko can’t even see if it’s truly shoreline or just an anomaly in the middle of nothing. He’s soaked to the skin and shivering, his arms trembling with exertion, and he doesn’t even have the energy to cry. He sprawls across the deck and stares up at the weak sunlight.

It dries him eventually as it grows stronger, and with it, Zuko feels himself replenishing too. Not enough to _do_ anything about the horrible situation, but enough to venture into the cabin and grab his pack and whatever else he can. The contents of the tiny space had slid around during the storm, smashed china and food littering the floor, but his bag is thankfully wedged into a corner under his bunk. Zuko rifles through it until his fingers close around the compass.

Then he goes out onto the deck and sits.

He is trying to think of a plan, but there isn’t anything to form one with. The star, wherever it may be, is hopelessly out of the reach of the broken little ship, and now he’s miles from home as well. All he’s got is the sun in his eyes and one useless, spinning compass.

Then a cloud passes over the sun and he doesn’t even have that. Zuko looks up, irritated beyond belief at whatever has decided to deprive him of this last simple pleasure, but he realizes the white shape is moving too quickly to be a normal cloud. It’s not quite the right color, either; white around the edges, but a light tan in the middle.

And it’s descending.

Some kind of monster, then, maybe, come to put him out of his misery. Zuko’s almost relieved. He’d take one last standoff against a mystical creature over the creeping monotony of dehydration or starvation. Maybe he can even take the thing down with him, he thinks as he lights a flame in his palm.

The monster hovers just out of reach above the jagged rock. Zuko can see it more clearly now: a massive shaggy head with plaintive black eyes staring out from under the hair, a strange arrow marking on its forehead. It opens its mouth and lows at him.

And then a peculiar bald head with eyes as big as dinner plates appears above the monster’s.

“Hi,” the boy says. “Need a ride?”

-

In a palace far beyond the storm, a cruel man sits in contemplation.

“I cannot ensure he will complete the task I’ve set him. The boy is weak.”

“My lord, if he does not return with the star?”

The cruel man steeples his fingers. “Then we will have to ensure someone else does. Its power is too great to lose.”

The fires blaze brighter around his throne. They thrum with the promise of power made flesh. The room hangs in silence, and the cruel lord makes his decision.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so this is technically my zutara week day 4 entry ... sorta ;) i figured this fit with the celestial theme and wanted to reassure yall that this is NOT abandoned and i just got sidetracked with my zk week projects! i've got this written through ch8 and it should be less than a month before the next chapter is up <3

**Author's Note:**

> it's here!!! 💙
> 
> i was going to wait til i had a little more of this written to post but i just couldn't wait! i figured with the quarantine + avatar being on netflix for the US folk it was about time. i think this will be updating every two weeks but i'll be fine-tuning some bits so it may be closer to 3 at first. i'm super excited about this one - i've missed you all!


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